A Scoundrel's Journey
by Shadow Quickpaw
Summary: Notorious weapons dealer Shad Logan has been roped into the raging war against Malak's empire, to his deep chagrin. Soon he becomes far too involved for his liking, and ends up a pivotal figure in galactic events (despite his best efforts). Watch as he evolves from a down and dirty smuggler into a noble and virtuous Jedi Knight. Or not…


Star Wars: Scoundrel's Journey

**After a regrettable hiatus, the Quickpaw has returned to FF. Don't worry, Continuity is still going. Just as soon as I receive some sort of inspiration from on high...**

**For the record I will mostly be focusing current and future endeavors on the works of Bioware.**

**Disclaimer: Do I really need to say anything? That one word should be enough.**

_The clouds burned red with the blood of a thousand lost souls. Countless voices crying out in terror as one by one they were silenced; forever. Always he wondered: was it worth it? Was any of it worth what he had to do to keep people safe? And who was he protecting, really?_

_Sunset stained stone surrounded him on all sides, and the star barely peeked over the horizon of a sea past the grounds of a temple. I watched him from above… always from above. For the longest time he stood there, unmoving, almost as if he himself was carved from the same stone as the strange carvings around him. Then, as inevitable as the march of time (and as slow. Wish he would hurry up!) the hooded figure reached up into his face as my view panned downwards in a dizzying spiral. His hands clasped either side of his face mask. _

_Before he could undo it and finally show me his face, an explosion rocked the temple around us. I glanced upwards and saw wedge-shaped fighters screaming their way through the air, and a second burst of fire knocked me from my feet and off the temple's summit, plummeting towards the ground…_

I landed flat on my face, bunk-covers still tangled around me. I tried to sit up, but the floor rocked beneath me with a thunderous boom, and once again my handsome face received an unwarranted bruise. I glared at the walls of the _Endar Spire's _dormitory, muttering obscenities to myself.

The dream. The stupid dream that still made absolutely no sense.

Unfortunately the loud rockings and groanings of the Hammerhead cruiser were far easier to understand. We had been ambushed. I scrambled to my feet, divested myself of my bed-sheet, and hurried to the viewports opposite the bulkhead door, trying to get a read on the opposing ships. I had to blink hard several times when one came into view, emitting a red laser of death.

The same ships from my dream. _Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!_

_How is that… I don't even…_

My inner voice was speechless. And that is saying something, let me tell you. Usually you couldn't get my **actual** voice to stop running if you sealed it shut with duroplast, let alone trying to curb my inner monologues.

Fortunately my initial paralysis didn't last long. My brain was now solidly in battle tactician mode, and it was clear that I wasn't going to last long against Sith troopers in my skivvies. I strode to my assigned footlocker and started donning my kit when the door behind me snapped open.

I forwent my trouser belt and snatched up my trusty blaster pistol, Snarky (yes, I named my heavy pistol. What of it?!), pointing it at whoever it was that had caught me with my pants down; literally in this case.

"Hey! Easy there, soldier."

I relaxed and blew out a breath. "Jeeze, Trask. Don't sneak up on me like that. I don't like the thought of having to clean up the bloodstains." I irritably went back to suiting up, tugging on the loops of my trousers.

"Oh, come on." Trask grinned at me as he too grabbed his kit from the footlocker beside mine (though he was already in full combat dress, being on an opposite shift). "The commander wouldn't have come down on you for an honest mistake-"

"Oh yes she would." I cut him off, hopping on one foot as I dragged on a combat boot. "The ol' Ice queen would make me scrub the **whole ship **with a non-powered enamel brush, then take away my fraternization privileges for a month." Trask snickered. We had bonded early in our deployment over such jokes about our resident prim-and-proper Jedi taskmaster. I think her name was Jan, or San, or something like that. I never really bothered to get too close.

The ship abruptly pitched to one side and sent me back to the floor with a yelp and another bruise; this time on the posterior region.

"E'chuta!" I sprang to my feet again and braced myself wide enough to weather any other maneuvers I would be subjected to. Trask rolled his eyes.

"Someday I'm going to yell at you for that language."

"But not today," I shot back with an evil smirk. I pulled my combat vest and nerf-leather jacket out and started to put them on. Trask elbowed me in the ribs and nearly made me lose my balance again.

"I still can't believe you know all those languages." I shrugged.

"Yeah, well going on all those deep space commissions helped." I fastened my stealth field generator to my belt and holstered Snarky, groping for my vibroblade.

"And I'm sure running spice and blasters past the Corellian blockades had nothing to do with it." I glanced over at my shipmate with my best innocent, puppy-frog-dog eyes.

"My dear Ensign Ulgo, I have absolutely **no **idea what you're talking about." I cleared my throat as I snapped the last pieces of my attire into place. "How exactly did we get pounced on?"

Trask grunted. "Sith battlefleet. It was lying in wait for us, and now we're under orders to clear ship."

"Right. All hands to defend the commanding officer, right?" I glowered at him. "No respect for the little guys around here." I ignored Trasks glare burning into the back of my head when I went over to hack through the security on the hallway doors.

"Bastila's the only chance we have of getting out of here alive, whether she's our superior or not." I glanced back at Trask and raised my hands in mock surrender..

"Hey, I'm not saying I won't do what I was hired to do," I replied, going back to my hacking. "All I'm saying is that the _Spire _isn't likely to last much longer with the beating it's taking, and it's just **my **luck that I was slapped in the bunk furthest from the escape pods."

Trask wrinkled his nose at me and drew his own pistol (which he had named Gyver. See?! I'm not the only one!) as I finished slicing through the door. He smirked.

"I have the key card for that, you know."

I had just finished, and the door was now unlocked. I threw up my hands and wailed "You could've said that earlier!"

"I could've," Trask agreed. "But it's much more fun watching you fumble around."

"Yeah, well we'll see how much fun you have when I fumble a frag grenade right up your-"

Trask seized the back of my jacket and hauled me away from the fiery death trap I had almost walked into. _Add yet another one to what I owe him. Seriously, how many drinks am I going to have to buy this guy?!_

A pair of Sith troopers had managed to penetrate the dormitory section and were now raining bolts into any unfortunate recruit who dared show his face in the crowded hallway. Which was most of them, to my dismay. I watched as the enemies' blasters cut down Ensigns Yaxly, Choro, and Handra before I worked up my nerve and dove out of cover with my signature flash-bangs.

When it was over, I gently closed the eyes of the dead soldiers, most of whom weren't even fully dressed. Or armed for that matter. One of the recruits didn't look to be more than eighteen. I felt my throat tightening, and I kicked the dead Sith in disgust, spitting on them.

"These were your comrades," I said, though my enemies were past hearing. "You fought beside them, you laughed with them, and now you cut them down without remorse." I fought back the tears that threatened to blind me and steadied Snarky in my hand. Trask started rifling through the pockets of the fallen, looking for credits or kolto packs.

I started forward, a murderous expression on my face, then stopped. Trask looked up at me, eyes wide. I shook my head and strode down the corridor, saying over my shoulder "No use leaving this stuff here, they don't need them anymore."

We fought through the trio in the next room, did the same looting round as before, and witnessed another slaughter as one of the enemy troopers used a grenade to take out three Republic soldiers and one of his own in the blast.

To them, I showed no mercy. I gave no quarter to the kinds of people who gleefully sacrificed others in their place, and I had come to know and respect many of my fellow conscriptees who the Sith mowed down like bantha. As we approached the next bulkhead we heard the sounds of clashing laser blades from beyond and paused.

I glanced over at Trask, and he nodded. We threw open the doors to find a female Jedi locked in combat with a Sith in shiny armor (and just as shiny palette. _Sheesh, do all Sith have cancer or something? They can't even grow a decent mustache!)_. We wisely stayed out of it, as our intervention would have caused more harm than good.

As I watched the two force-wielders battle, I started to see a symmetry in their blows, a subtle pattern that somehow seemed familiar. One strike flowed into the next, in a hypnotic dance that made me somehow calm and relaxed. After another few seconds I could have sworn I was seeing the combatants' moves before they made them, and though my head swam a little at the speed at which they moved I never lost track of the battle.

The Jedi was obviously the superior duelist however, and in time she smacked her opponent's blade to the side and delivered an upward thrust that nearly cleaved the man in half. She turned to us and raised an arm in greeting when a horrible feeling struck me. My gut clenched in a moment of sheer panic as from the side I saw sparks fly off a latent capacitor, but before I could warn her the wall saw fit to cleave itself outward and imbed shards of itself into her.

Before I could register more than a choked "E'chuta!" another pair of troopers barred our path, the muzzles of their rifles swinging wildly. It seemed we weren't the only ones disoriented by the explosion. I decided to use this to my advantage.

Yelling wildly, I charged the two with arms outstretched, hitting them in the stomach, knocking one to the ground and staggering the other. The first I finished with a blaster shot to the head, the second an underhanded (or under_footed_) kick to the nethers and a quick neck twist.

Trask whistled wryly. I just grimaced at him, wondering just how big our body count was going to grow before we got out of this mess. The bridge was now ahead of us, and that meant tight quarters and limited line of sight.

"Vibro-blades?" He asked, drawing a pair of cortosis daggers from his belt. I snorted.

"No, lightsabers." Trask stared at me, and I huffed. "Of **course **vibro-blades, what do I look like?" I thought about that for a second, then cut Trask off as he opened his mouth. "Okay, don't answer that." I drew my own prototype short-sword from my back and opened the bridge door.

Luck (and a pair of conveniently timed explosions from the consoles on the bridge) saw us to the other side with minor flesh wounds (well, minor for Trask. My pride would take longer to heal than my womanizing face could counter), but there was no sign of our quarry.

"Bastila's not here on the bridge," Trask stated flatly.

"No krif, inspector Jedi," I quipped. Trask glared at me. "What? Shad Logan has to liven up the mood somehow."

Trask hit me on the shoulder on his way to one of the _Spire'_s nav-computer. "And Shad Logan likes to talk about himself in the third person."

"Yes he does," I agreed, puffing out my chest dramatically.

Our holocoms beeped at almost exactly the same time, and Lieutenant Onasi's voice blared at us in stereo. "All hands, all hands! Commander Shan's escape pod is away, any survivors get to the starboard escape pods!"

"Carth!" Trask fiddled with his communicator for a second. "We read you, is anyone else with you?"

"Not on my end, and your two comms are the only ones responding." Carth's voice grew mournful. "Looks like we're the only survivors. Look," another immense hit made the _Spire _bank hard to port, and as there was no one at the helm it seemed the old girl was dead in the water. "I can't wait for you much longer! Get over here!"

"We're on our way," I said, putting my comm. back into my pocket and opening the door to the starboard section. Before we could go more than a few steps, I was seized by the same sense of foreboding that preceded the grisly death of the female Jedi. Before I could warn Trask the door in front of us opened to reveal another Sith in dark robes, holding a menacing saberstaff.

"The Force smiles on me today," he growled, igniting twin red blades and smirking. "I have the pleasure of last blood."

"Yeah? It'll be your own!" I snarled, tossing a frag grenade at his feet. It went off a second later, forcing the dark warrior to backpedal furiously to avoid the blast. Trask shoved me to one side and charged him, locking blades.

"I've got him Shad! Get out of here!"

"What?! I'm not just gonna leave you here-"

"That's an order soldier!" Trask bellowed, aiming his next strike at the door's console, frying it. "Get to the escape pods! **GO!**"

I tried to get to him. I really did. But I wasn't fast enough. The bulkhead slammed shut in my face causing me to smack myself against it. I screamed my frustration and banged my fist into it. In the next instant all the energy left me, and I slid down to the floor with gritted teeth.

"Krif. Krif them all to HELL." I don't know how long I sat there, leaning against the bulkhead that had sealed my friend's fate. It took about a minute for me to register that my comm was beeping at me again.

"_Ulgo! Logan! What's going on? Answer me Force damn it!"_

"Carth."

"_Shad! Finally, where are you? What's your position?"_

"It's Trask. He didn't… He…" I couldn't finish. I had seen men die before. But losing a friend hit way too close to home. I swallowed and got up, a slow fire building inside me. "I'm at the entrance to the starboard section, I'll be at the escape pods in a minute."

"_We'll make Trask proud. But you need to hurry, there's a squad of troopers trying to hack their way in here!"_

"How long before they break through?" I picked up the pace, drawing Snarky and glancing warily down the corridor.

"_Two minutes, tops._"

"Any ideas?"

"_There's a power conduit in the next room you could slice, or an assault droid that could back you up."_

I paused, thinking it over. "That's assuming I can get to either one. There's a whole patrol between there and here."

"_I know, but you can use your stealth belt to sneak past them."_

That got my attention. "Hold on… how did you know I've got an SFG?"

"_Not now! I'll explain once we're out of this mess!"_

"Riiiiiiiiiiight." I glared at my comm., and decided not to push it. "Sit tight. I'll be there as fast as I can."

I turned on my stealth generator and felt the familiar static charge spread across my body. I slowly crept around the corner and noticed the single guard pacing the corridor. Now one thing about a personal SFG: it doesn't make you actually invisible, it just creates a sort of optical camouflage that only works to a certain point. Get too close to your target and they'll notice the air shimmering.

Luckily the Endar Spire chose this moment to have another explosive hiccup, forcing the trooper in front of me to stagger and hurry over to make sure he wasn't going to die a horrible death. I used this to sneak past while he had his back turned.

This still left two other guards in the adjacent room, but being the master sneak I am I managed to dispatch them handily. And by handily I mean alerting them almost immediately to my presence when I tripped over some exposed wiring. It wasn't my fault I swear!

A carefully timed grenade solved that problem, but it still shorted out my stealth belt for the near future. I glanced at the broken down battle droid in the corner, but quickly discarded that idea. I didn't have the parts. Thus the console.

Fortunately computer hacking was a hobby of mine, and I brought up the visual sensors in the next room with a convenient computer spike. It looked as though a whole platoon of troopers were on the other side of the doors, a few of them trying to hack their way into the escape pod bay. Without much luck, if the red-armored CO's foul language was any indication.

I accessed the power control schematics and bypassed the power conduit's safety measures. Holding my hand above the execute button, I glared viciously at the soldiers on the vidscreen, saying "Force take you, bastards." I pressed the button.

But even I had to look away from the explosion of electrical energy, arching all across the troopers and cooking them inside their own armor. It may have been no more than they deserved, but still. It was a bad way to go.

The path to the escape pods was now clear. I stepped gingerly over the smoking bodies littering the room and banged my fist on the bulkhead. "Onasi! Open up! It's me!"

The doors clanked open, and I found myself face-to-barrel with a blaster pistol. "Hey hey hey, there's no need for that!"

The hand holding the blaster pulled the trigger and it fired. But not at me. The trooper I had snuck past slumped to the floor behind me, a gaping hole in his helmet. "Okay. Never mind."

Carth grimaced, pointing at the pods' console. "There's no time. I've been monitoring their comm. chatter: there's another squad around the corner. We have to leave now!"

"Alright already." I clambered into the cramped compartment of the escape pod with some difficulty. These things had obviously not been designed for ergonomics. Carth jostled me a bit climbing in behind me. "No pushing!"

"Would you rather the Sith join us?" Carth closed the hatch behind us and activated the eject sequence.

"Fair point." The pod jettisoned from its housing and began its descent into the atmosphere of Taris. I fumbled around for a safety harness, feeling the pod start to heat up from atmospheric re-entry. Before I could hasten myself in, the Endar Spire exploded in a blaze of fiery… well… **explodiness**, sending our pod careening off course.

I was launched out of my seat and slammed bodily into the side of the pod. The last thing I saw before being overtaken by darkness was the steel towers of Taris out the viewport. Then everything just… wasn't there anymore.


End file.
